Suicide Mission
I see you yet. Beneath a rusted fan
wobbling like the severed head
of a brown-eyed Susan, your body
pirouettes. It has no more feeling
than a prism hung or stained
glass absorbing and releasing sun.
Your rictus smile is set as proof
of your belief that suicide
constitutes the mission we're all on.
This dirge inside my head is your
last sound and the only truth
you counted on as Death tied its
bandage around your eyes. You tried
and tried and now you've turned
to stone. I know only what I've
always known: your frail soul
shivered beyond my mortal view
like lightning flashing in a cave
where dead sons sleep. Your eyes
that kept their secrets search
claustrophobic rooms no more
for me or imagined enemies.
Your thirst was not for water
but for salt. I marvel you stayed
on Earth at all. Death for you
was a friendly thing, pushing you
gently forward and back like a child
on a garden swing. You recite
a final time the litany of everything
you loved and hated loving. Night
strums its blue guitar. Your face,
its future and its past, is framed
and frozen under glass. I send
this final incantation: From where
you are, may you at last embrace
the jubilation of some morning star.
|